The first generation of modern Mor " lectuals

Transcription

1 The Swearing Elders The first generation of modern Mor " lectuals By Thomas A. Blakely T oday, thoughtful members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints can find many forums to air their religious views and discuss the meaning of their faith--including SUNSTONE, Dialogue, Brigham Young University Studies, the Journal c.f Mormon History, and the annual meetings of the.mormon History Association and the Sunstone Theological Symposium. But just a few decades ago, the only outlets for LDS intellectuals~to explore any aspect of Mormon culture were inforznally organized study groups. One of the most r~otorious of these efforts was organized in Salt Lake City in the post-world War II period. This collection of educated Mormons, known as the "Mormon Seminar," or, more informally, the "Swearing Elders," attracted the attention o1~ the Mormon hierarchy and set the stage for the development of the Mormon intelligentsia. In the winter of , a University of Utah Ph.D. candidate in sociology named Herbert Larson approached a then-new professor in the philosophy department named Sterling McMurrin. Speaking for himself and some other graduate students and junior faculty members, Larson asked Dr. McMurrin to teach a course on Mormon theology. McMurrin s answer went something like this: "Now, Herb, you guys are big boys now, and you don t need to have a class in Mormon theology. You should ve known all there is to know about Mormon theology by the time you graduated from high school!" Although he discouraged a formal class in Mormon theology, McMurrin felt that if those interested wanted to spend their time in a worthwhile manner, they should dispense with a.single teacher and specified topics. Instead, McMurrin recommended they "find people who know sometthing, whom you d like to bring in. See what they know, and have a go-around." "][ he subjects could range from sociology to philosophy to theology to history, and the group could enjoy complete freedom. The idea appealed to Larson and his friiends. He ]iater returned to invite McMurrin and his ]Mormon colleagues in the department, Waldemer P. Read and Obert C. Tanner. Read and Tanner agreed to come, provided they found t]he meetiings worthwhile. The group first met in the spring of 1949 in the old University of Utah library (now the George Thomas Museum of Natural History) :in a small seminar room on the upper floor. Ten to twelve

2 people attended, including Herb Larson (who served as chadrman), William Mulder, Don Orton, Jack Adamson, Lowell Bennion, T. Edgar Lyon, and Drs. McMurrin, Read, and Tanner. Larson decided to arrange the meetings according to subject and not according to speaker, as McMurrin had suggested. He wanted to use the first meeting to elicit suggestions for possible discussion topics. But this first session raised unexpected conflicts. As McMurrin now recalls, "I could see the sheep and the goats separating right there at the table!" For example, although Tanner and Read had thought the meetings worth investigating, they found this initial session disappointing. When one person said he wanted to discuss a specific Mormon doctrine such as the resurrection, Tanner s reaction was unequivocal: "Now look! If you think we re going to come here and sit around and discuss that, all I can say to you is that you re in the wrong place!" Another person wanted to discuss a topic related to the Book of Mormon. Ta~nner stood up and said, " I m in the wrong place!" and stormed out of the room. McMurrin reports that he followed Tanner and persuaded him that the group did have some potential and encouraged him not to bail out so

3 If anything marks the Swearing Elders, it was a healthy skepticism about anything that the Brethren uttered. soon. So Tanner returned. Informality characterized the group. They had no official organization or membership; people were free to come to whatever sessions they wished and miss those they did not find interesting. They also never took a formal name; most often they were simply called the Mormon Seminar. The noted sociologist Lowry Nelson, a visiting professor from the University of Minnesota, came to the group s second meeting, and nicknamed them the Swearing Elders. In the fall of 1950 Larson decided to leave for a teaching position at the college in Price. Although some saw in this the end of the group, the LDS institute teachers, Lowell Bennion and T. Edgar Lyon, felt the group worth continuing. Since their positions at the institute precluded them from taking leadership positions in any such organization,, they asked McMurrin and Mulder to take charge. The pair agreed, and they reorganized the group into the form which ]persisted until its demise in McMurrin and Mulder instituted two major changes for the group: first, it became speakeroriented, as McMurrin had originally s~tggested, and second, only professors were invited to attend the meetings. Students were barred from participating in order to allow the professors complete freedom to say what they wished. McMurrin s and Mulder s only real leadership tasks were to decide (after consulting with the others) what speakers to invite and to send out announcements to the regulars and others who might be interested. Mulder and McMurrin typically invited people who had published books dealing with Mormonism or had finished a Mormon-oriented thesis. A question-and-answer period followed the speaker s presentation. Everyone was encouraged to participate, and it was an open, friendly environment. The study group soon acquired a modest notoriety, and professors from other universities in Utah asked whether they could participate. They were welcome, of course, and the gatherings filled up with not only University of Utah faculty, but also scholars from Brigham Young University, Weber State College, and Utah State University. Each attendee had his own reasons for coming. Mulder, for example, enjoyed the networks that were formed. Among the Mormons, a book,edited by Mulder and Dr. Russ Mortensen, was made possible partly beause of the help of the Swearing Elders, who led them to relevant documents. Similarly, Dr. Lowell Bennion felt the meetings benefited him in his role as a teacher: "My purpose at the [LDS] institute was to help people reconcile their faith with their learning on campus," he recalls. "So why not hear more and more about that very issue?" On the other hand, many of the participants from BYU came seeking freedom to express their thoughts. Dr. Brigham Madsen, a regular.attendee of the meetings, recalls that "at BYU, we didn t have quite the freedom that the people at the University of Utah had about discussing such things, and yet we had an interest in them... we wanted to hear people that knew something about Mormon history, Mormon theology, and who were not afraid to speak their minds... here was a way to listen to suclh people." The mailing list included the names of" such Mormon academics as Heber Snell, Joseph Geddes, Leonard Ar~Tington, Jennings Olson, M. Lynn F~ennion, Russ Mortensen, Angus Woodbury, Stanley Ivins, Obert Tanner, Waldemer Read, Charles Dibble, Everett Cooley, Ray Canning, Brigham Madsen, P. A. Christensen, Richard Poll, (?,olden Taylor, Gustive Larson,. Lowell Bennion, T. Edgar Lyon, George Boycl, Leonard Rice, Russell Swenson, and others. The invited speakers included local teachers and scholars such as Stanley Ivins, who spoke on the history and sociology of polygamy; Louis 2 ucker, a non-mormon who spoke on Old Testament ideas; Leonard Arrington, who reported on his research into early Mormon economic history; Haroldl T. Christensen, whose paper discussed the "isms" of Mormonism; Hugh Nibley, who gave a defense of the Book of Mormon; Jack Adamson, who spoke on legends of gold plates in nineteenth-century America; ~ts well as Juanita E~rooks and J. D. Williams. Occasionally the group was lucky enough to hear from writers and scholars who happened to b,e passing through the area. Among these were Carl Carmer, who talked abou.t Joseph Smith s New England; Bernard DeVot,o, who spoke informally on the West in history and literature;!/vhitney Cross, who spoke about the "burnedover district" and his book by that name; and also Wallace Stegner, Thomas F. O Dea, and Samuel l/v. Taylor. Two LDS General Authorities were also involved with the study group. Levi Edgar Young attended some sessions, and the group had the pleasure of having Apostle Adam S. Bennion address them on problems confronting LDS college teacher.,;. The mood[ of the meetings was light..after McMurrin and Mulder took over, the meetings were moved from the library to the old student union building (now the David P. Gardner Hall) where they would meet in a.:lining area. The hanchroom employees would still be working, and the group was able to order milkshakes, ice cream sodas or (occasionally) a heretical cup of coffee as they listened to the speaker. Coffee was not the only heresy of the Swearing Elders, of course. As Ray Canning recounts: Nobody cared about the "swearing," and nobody cared about ti~e "elders," but the name sort of said ~hat this was a group Of people who were more relaxed in l~ormonism, and certainly more on ~!he liberal side than on the ultraconservative 10 SUNSTONE

4 side of the Mormon and political and theological spectrum, and therefore more apt to look at Mormonism naturalistically as well as supernaturalistically. Some of them were very concerned with the supernatural side, but more often historically or philosophically or sociologically oriented. And they would raise these kinds of questions, rather open questions: some of them scholarly questions, some of them questions of opinion, some of new documents being found. All kinds of things of that nature. Mulder has similar memories: I think if anything marks the Swearing Elders, it was a healthy skepticism about anything that the Brethren--early or late--uttered, and the last resort was always a sense of rationality, the attempt to be rational about everything... It was a liberai group that enjoyed meeting with each other and talking about issues... [and] grappling with questions historical, theological, social... We had wonderful points of view and backgrounds to draw on. Sterling and Waldemer in philosophy; historians like Brig Madsen and Everett Cooley; someone out of literature like me; a sociologist like Ray Canning. It was stimulating to have people with these different disciplines talking about particular things. The Swearing Elders saw nothing inappropriate in this liberal, even skeptical, approach. As Lowell Bennion observes, "We believed the glory of God and man was intelligence, and we wanted to use our minds in relation to religion, as well as exercise some hope and faith. I don t see anything wrong with that." To Obert Tanner, the Swearing Elders were "a group of devoted Mormons who went over the mountains and on our return wanted to compare with each other what we had found out." Eventually, the probing and questioning of the intellectuals like the Swearing Elders attracted the attention of Church authorities, who regarded the meeting:; with suspicion and probably some confusion.. Such intellectuals posed a potential threat, the officials felt, because as professors they could corrupt the youth of the Church. McMurrin was especially suspect since, as Mulder puts it, "he was the grandson of one of the first presidents of the Seventies; he had a special genealogy there, and they were concerned about a man as bright and as respected as he and what his position was." In the summer of 1952 McMurrin was invited by Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee to visit with them and discuss several things, one of which was the Swearing Elders. McMurrin remembers, The letter from Apostle Lee inviting me to meet with them was very strange... He said that he and Apostle Smith would like to discuss with me the meetings " which were being held at the University for the purpose of criticizing us." I realized that he referred to the meetings of the Swearing Elders. But I was astounded that he would say "for the purpose of criticizing us."... By "us," I thought that he must mean the General Authorities of the Church. The amazing thing is that during our discussion it became evident that he meant that we were holding these meetings for the purpose of criticizing Joseph Fielding Smith and Harold B. Lee. The meeting was entirely cordial, and near the end of the three-hour session, McMurrin got to the heart of the matter. I raised the question with President Smith and Apostle Lee as to whether or not what they were getting at was that we shouldn t be holding these meetings. I didn t give them any reason to think that we were going to discontinue them. As a matter of fact, I was getting a little tired of them, but after this session it became necessary to continue them because we couldn t give them the idea that we had stopped holding the meetings because of their raising some questions about them. President Smith was very anxious to make the point that by no means did they want us to discontinue holding the sessions... President Smith said, " You educated people in the Church, you people in the universities, have just as much right roger together and talk things over as any of the rest of us. We don t think that you should discontinue these meetings. We have no objection to your holding these meetings." Apostle Lee agreed, although McMurrin remarks, "In my opinion, they did want to see them discontinued, but they weren t about to say that." But Harold B. Lee proposed something different. He suggested that at the end of each meeting McMurrin summarize the discussion and state the official Church view on the matter, so that "when they go away from the meeting there can be no misunderstanding." McMurrin balked at the idea: I told him that that would be absolutely impossible. I said, "Apostle Lee... half of [these people are] teachers at the Brigham Young University. Some of them are old enough to be my father. They have been in the Church for years... It would be presumptuous of me to do a thing like that. I couldn t possibly do it. Besides, if I were to do it once, that would be the end of the whole affair. They re not going to come there to hear somebody give them a warning before they go home that they must be sure to keep in mind what the Church teaches. They know what the Church teaches." When Igor through stating my case, nothing more along that line was said. For General Authorities who are accustomed to telling people what to think and expecting them to do it, it was very difficult for them roger the feel of what the Swearing Elders were about. But i think they did get the idea that this would be an inappropriate thing to do. Apparently, however, this discussion did not allay upper echelon suspicion of McMurrin s activities. Some time later the philosophy professor was the topic of a bizarre discussion led by the daughter of a key General Authority at a social gathering. As Dr. Ray Canning, who was present, recounts: We were sitting there just chatting about odd things, then this particular woman began to talk--these are her terms--- about an "Anti-Christ in Salt Lake City" who had a "blood cult dedicated to the destruction of the Church." Now there are three extremes in a row: Anti-Christ, blood cult, destruc- The Swearing Elders attracted the attention of Church authorities, who regarded the meetings with some suspicion. SUNSTONE!1

5 This was the only time I ever told a General Authority to shut up and sit down. I doubt I will ever have occasion to do so again. lion of the Church. And I listened to this, and I was really amazed to hear this kind of talk. I didn t put it together with the Swearing Elders at all or with any personality. And finally, after she had stopped telling us all these horrible things about this group that was really subversive, I said to her, " Who are you talking about?" I d like to find out who this Anti-Christ is; dangerous stuff. "Well, "she. said, "It s Sterling McMurrin." Canning explained that McMurrin was hardly the monster she had made him out to be, saying "You know, I don t question your sincerity; obviously you believe this. But it s false." Then he added, "You must have gotten it from a very poor source." Angered, the woman informed him that her source was her father, who happened to be a prominent General Authority. Canning then remembers, To settle the whole thing right down, she said, "Of course you know that S~erling McMurrin is up for excommunication." She thou~:ht this would take care of the whole thing. And I said, "You know very well that that has been stopped by President David 0. McKay." And her retort really chilled me. Her exact words were: "Yes, but that s just temporary." You got the impression that David 19. McKay wasn t going to last forever. Then they would do it. A similar attitude was expressed in a talk by Harold B. Lee possibly referring to Sterling McMurrin and the Swearing Elders. Elder Lee remarked that "subterfuge, hypocrisy, and deceit stalk the earth these perilous days and none are safe. Even the elite are tempted, oft times beyond their strength." A Deseret News article covering the speech reported that "Elder Lee drew attention to the all-too frequent reports of this individual who had worked his wiles within a group and was leading it astray. These people generally base their decisions upon the reasoning and philosophies of ~nen, [Elder Lee] said, disregarding the guides the Lord has provided by which good can be distinguished from evil." Perhaps the best example of the growing conflict between the General Authorities and the Swearing Elders can be found in one of the group s last and most memorable meetings. The seminar took the form of a debate between Jennings Olson, a professor of philosophy from Weber State College, and Melvin Cook, an explosives expert and professor of metallurgy from the University of Utah. The two scholars met to debate the merits, or lack thereof, of the thenrecently published work, Man: His Origin and Destiny, written by Joseph Fielding Smith. The large book was known for its strong antiscience bias. Cook, who penned the work s introduction, had given President Smith technical assistance in writing the book. Naturally, Olson defended the evolutionists and the geologists while Cook defended Joseph Fielding Smith s writings and their rejection of both evolution and the estimate by the world s leading geologists of the age of the earth. News of the upcoming debate spread, and among the :many curious attendees were LDS General Authorities Milton R. Hunter, Bruce R. McConkie, and Mark E. Petersen. The meeting was held November 13, 1954, itn the Little Theattre upstairs in the old student union building. Madsen describes the event as "just one of the most interesting meetings we ever had, because the debate was hot and heavy." And indeed it was. According to McMurrin, Cook defended the book s position that the earth was only six thousand years old (a point, incidentally, which turned Mormon scientist Henry Eyril~g into one of the book s most vehement critics). When the time came for the audience to ask questions, geologist Lee Stokes turned to Cook. As McMurrin details, LStokes began,] " Professor Cook, apparently you are not of the opinion that the sedimentary rocks of the earth s crust were laid down over a long period of time under pressure from the water, and so on, and there w.ere great upheavals," etc. He went through the usual routine of a geologist describing the earth :; crust, particularly with respect to sedimentary rocks. Cook listened very carefully and when Stokes concluded by sa:ying, "Apparently you don t agree with the geologists that this is the way the crust of the ear~th was formed," Cook replied, "Oh no, that would take a long time." That was about as intelligent as anything thart Cook was able to say, it seemed to me, on that subject. At the end of the meeting,.apostle Bruce R. McConkie rose and made several points that he considered important. Recalling his own amazernent at Eh]er McConkie s comments, Olson reports the young General Authority saying that if everything that was said in the meeting about the age of t]he earth, evolution, etc. were true, then Mormonism was false. We know, Elder McConkie said, that this is not the case. Mormonism is true; therefore what the scientists have to say about evolution and the age of the earth is false. McMurrin elaborates: He was there as a defender of the book, of course, a son-inlaw of President Smith and one of the General Authorities of the Church. He d spoken a time or two. The time was getting very short; everyone wanted to say something. As a matter of ]act, the janitor had told me that they needed to lock up the building. There were only a very few minutes left, so I rationed out the time and told those who spoke they could only have a very short time--i don t know, two minutes, possibly three minutes. But Bruce went on and on. I Honed.to him that his time was up and pointed to my watch. Finally, when he wouldn t sit down, I stood up. As I stood up, he said, "Now listen, Sterling,".and I said, " Now you,listen to me, Bruce. Your time is up, and I want you to sit down, so you sit down." So he... salt down. I menhon this,only because I want the record to show that, so far as I can recall, this was the only time that I ever told one of the General Authorities to shut up and sit down. I doubt I will ever have occasion to do so in the full, re. Sterling McMurrin was not the only Swearing Elder to confront a General Authority on this 12 SUNSTONE

6 issue. Following the meeting, Dr. Richard Poll, an historian from BYU, received a letter from Joseph Fielding Smith, which said, "I am informed that you were at Sterling McMurrin s Anti- Mormon Seminar. November 13, 1954, and took part in the criticism. I wonder if you are properly quoted." To this letter, Poll responded: I did attend the Mormon Seminar on November 13, being one of t.he more or less regular participants in the group s gatherings. Among these mature Latter-day Saints-- none of whose church standing has, as far as I am aware, been called into question--i have occasionally commented on controversial ~Ispectsof our history and doctrine in terms which I would not regard as appropriate in my University or Sunday School classes. I expressed an opinion of your book on this occasion, though I assure that there was no pleasure for me in so doing. Whereupon President Smith sent this rejoinder: I am sorry to learn that you are " one of the more or less regular participants in the group s gatherings. " You say that they are " mature Latter-day Saints--none of whose standing has, as far as I am aware, been called into question." If you are a frequent participant in the group s gatherings and have the spirit of discernment, you must realize that they are not in harmony either with the Authorities or the doctrines of the Church. Do you thit~k a man who denies the fall of Adam, the Atonement of Jesus Christ and his resurrection a "mature Latter-day Saint?" President Smith ended the letter on a conciliatory note, with a hope that they could meet sometime soon after that and get "nearer together in our views." No doubt there are many reasons why such conflicts arose between certain General Authorities and the Swearing Elders. However, one of the most irnportant factors appears to be the degree of secular education attained by the members of: the study group. The Swearing Elders was the first generation of educators who in large numbers had studied at secular universities. Consequently, several of these individuals began to apply their scholarly methods and academic skepticism to their religion. As William Mulder describes, "Usually, we felt that, institutionally, the Church was hardly answering to the needs of the intellectual. [The Swearing Elders were] not forming a congregation or a church or a cell or anything; [they were] just free-floating spirits who happened to be in academia and wanted to apply the same kind of discipline that they exercised in their own calling to questions of the Spirit." Such an approach was clearly disturbing to Church leaders steeped in a tradition of unquestioning followers. Indeed, in his book, The Mormons, sociologist Thomas F. O Dea saw this encounter with modern secular thought as perhaps "Mormonism s greatest and most significant problem." Because the intellectual is "a questioner and a critic," O Dea observed, "he not only annoys conservatives but may come to threaten, or at least appear to threaten, cherished beliefs, values, and institutions... the intellectual often makes himself resented and becomes a target for aggression." (P. 222.) Such aggression was not easily resolved in part because the Swearing Elders and certain General Authorities had fundamentally different ways of perceiving issues. These Church leaders saw truth in absolute terms, believing the scriptures and Church hierarchy to possess all information necessary to salvation and eternal happiness. The Swearing Elders, on the other hand, saw the truth as something relative, leaving everything open to question, even the most basic assumptions. In light of such a deep-seated conflict, it is not surprising that some of these Church leaders saw the study group participants as heretics and apostates. Indeed, it would be surprising if they had not. By 1955 some members of the group began to find the meetings a little wearisome, particularly Mulder and McMurrin. They had other things to work on: Mulder was the editor of the Western Humanities Review, and McMurrin was the dean of the graduate school. The group was dissolved, and its members went their separate ways, many of them joining the now-infamous Angus Woodbury study group. Since that time, every decade has. added a considerable number to the body of Mormon intellectuals. Historian James Clayton calls this the "Swearing Elders syndrome": As the number of LDS college graduates grows, so also grows the need for a forum to discuss intellectual issues. The Swearing Elders came into being in the 1950s, Dialogue came on the scene in the 1960s, SUNSTONE and the Mormon History Association were born in the 1970s with the history and theological symposiums gaining popularity in the 1980s. As the number of thoughtful, questioning Mormons increases, conflicts like those that erupted between the Swearing Elders and some Church leaders will become more frequent and more accute. Certainly, there are things to be learned from both intellectuals and Church leaders. We can only hope that the disagreements can occur peacefully and that insights can be exchanged. In retrospect, it is clear that the Swearing Elders played an integral part in the founding of a movement that stressed intellectual honesty, scholarly integrity, and reflective pondering. If the glory of God and man is intelligence, then the Swearing Elders were glorious indeed. THOMAS A. BLAKELY is pursuing a juris doctorate at the University of Utah. Much of this paper was compiled from the. author s recent interviews with Lowell Bennion, Ray Canning,. Brigham Madsen, Sterling M. McMurrin, William Mulder, and Jennings Olson. It is not surprising that some of these Church leaders saw the study group participants as heretics and apostates. SUNSTONE 13